Seniors Benefits Discussion- split from Liberal (Minority/Majority) Government 2025 - ???

[Altair]

You just described my childhood. Single family homes were less than 1700 sqft, siblings shared rooms, meat and potatoes for dinner, and a beat up Chrysler van for transport.

Yeah, that was my childhood. And many others like me as well. Growing up in apartments with no yards, playing on side streets. Going to the park 2 kms away until you hear your mother yelling from a million kms away.

And you know what happened? In my experience anyways. I made friends with people in the middle income strata. I went to their houses. I saw their yards. And you know what happens? At least for me? I want better for my kids than I had for myself. I at zero point was in a small dinky apartment thinking ya, time for kids.

Thankfully the CAF helped push me up into the middle class pretty fast and I had my first and only at 28, but if it were not for the CAF I might still not have a child.

 

[lenaitch]

This is like asking why so many tech companies set up in Silicon Valley. The reality is that certain things work best in concentration. And rare is the business that wants to build entirely outside the ecosystem. Success often builds on success and clusters develop into self-sustaining ecosystems.

Also, for why businesses (or at least the white collar parts) are in downtown areas and not burbs? Simple. Catchment. Put your bank HQ on Bay Street and the catchment that you can draw employees from, is the 5 million people who can take GO Transit to Union. Put that same facility in Mississauga and your talent pool reduces substantially. Probably closer to maybe the 3M that can drive there in an hour. I never understand why people think businesses are clueless about stuff like this. You really think businesses are ignoring potential savings of suburban offices because they have no clue? Or is it that they look at the savings and the tradeoff against the talent pool and decide the high cost of urban offices is worthwhile.

You could argue that they can go online. And sure why not. But at that point why even bother hiring expensive Canadians? If a job can be done fully remotely, absent some regulatory reason, it becomes entirely possible for that job to be done by a non-Canadian for less. Not a trend I would want to push.

Not only that, at the management and executive level, big banks don't exist in a vacuum; they exist with other big banks, major accounting, advertising and law firms. You might be able to get the worker bees to live in Walkerton or Wawa, but not the high rollers. A large urban area is the centre of mass for commerce. As far as I know, there is not a single operating mine in any large city in Canada, but the head office for Agnico-Eagle is in Toronto and Teck Resources is in Vancouver. I wonder why that is.

 

[Furniture]

We need to remember that CAF incomes are in the top percentiles, and CAF expectations are consequently enlarged.

Because the asks of the CAF are greatly enlarged compared to the civilian work force... Unless you know burger flippers who are ordered to move around every few years by the Burger King or Ronald McDonald.

 

[Halifax Tar]

You just described my childhood. Single family homes were less than 1700 sqft, siblings shared rooms, meat and potatoes for dinner, and a beat up Chrysler van for transport.

Ford Aerostar for the family. Single cab, bench seat V6 Ford for dad. But same same.

 

[ytz]

Time to talk about cutting OAS before we end up in the same situation as France.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Time to talk about cutting OAS before we end up in the same situation as France.

Sure. What are the proposals, and how much will each reduce total spending?

"Cut all of it" isn't realistic, so we're not going to save $80B.

 

[brihard]

Because the asks of the CAF are greatly enlarged compared to the civilian work force... Unless you know burger flippers who are ordered to move around every few years by the Burger King or Ronald McDonald.

Sure, but those burger flippers are right at the bottom of working incomes. CAF compares very favourably to a lot of high skill/high effort jobs as well.

But I believe the point he’s making is that those of us in those income tiers come to expect the material comforts that come with our level of income, and can end up struggling to imagine getting by with less. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable take.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Sure, but those burger flippers are right at the bottom of working incomes. CAF compares very favourably to a lot of high skill/high effort jobs as well.

But I believe the point he’s making is that those of us in those income tiers come to expect the material comforts that come with our level of income, and can end up struggling to imagine getting by with less. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable take.

One can most defintaly get buy on less than I am making now.

But it wont be at the same standard of living.

 

[brihard]

One can most defintaly get buy on less than I am making now.

But it wont be at the same standard of living.

Definitely.

 

[foresterab]

Working from home gives worse results except in a few specific fields (coding and computer related fields generally). Employees do less and do worse quality work. Yes there is some people who are more productive as a individual, but generally those people even if they don't realize it often help out others at work bringing their coworkers standards higher and resulting in a greater productivity for the collective.

It also puts even more pressure on housing as part of the reason why everyone wants more space is the fact we spend more and more time indoors and as such need more space to make that work. If you need to have a office in your home too that is less space for other things or more home required.

It's not just space but also IT and infrastructure.

As a person who spends a fair amount of time working in outdoor areas just the change from 3G networks....which allowed for about 2/3rd of the region I work in to be covered in cell signal to the more modern 4G and 5G networks desired for high speed data transfer resulted in a huge drop in coverage. Now I guess at least half the areas I can see 3G on the cellphone I can not use the device as it requires the higher LTE cell networks.

Compound this for rural addresses and hamlets. You can't drive the transCanada highway in this country and have coverage. Large areas are dead zones. Locally the municipality has been funding and building cell boosters for rural concentrations of residents as cell coverage has now become a major driver in land sales/developments and if you don't have cell coverage sales plummet = tax base lost.

Point is the concept might make sense for some folks. Like you I know several folks - generally coding types - that excell under working from home. And then there are the many different stories of what worked for the individual...but at the cost of dumping more work on others who were available during core work periods and/or doing their full work. But working from home is definitely not as much of a blanket solution as many wish.

I will however acknowledge that the experience of having whole departments under working from home arrangements has opened/shattered some previous pre-conceptions. For example a worker with an ill child unable to attend day care can now work from home as a short term arrangement and even at 80% efficiency stay engaged in their work vs. taking full days off. Or opening up to needing an AM or PM off and making time up with supervisors agreement. Fully support the adjustments for the unusual situations short term....it's the long term office avoidance I struggle with.

 

[Furniture]

Sure, but those burger flippers are right at the bottom of working incomes. CAF compares very favourably to a lot of high skill/high effort jobs as well.

But I believe the point he’s making is that those of us in those income tiers come to expect the material comforts that come with our level of income, and can end up struggling to imagine getting by with less. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable take.

Fair, but my counterpoint stands.

CAF members are expected to sacrifice freedom and stability. It's not unreasonable for people who are asked to give more, to expect more.

 

[brihard]

Fair, but my counterpoint stands.

CAF members are expected to sacrifice freedom and stability. It's not unreasonable for people who are asked to give more, to expect more.

No, definitely not. Happily, they do get quite a bit more than most. I don‘t think anyone here is suggesting they shouldn’t; that’s not what’s being said.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Fair, but my counterpoint stands.

CAF members are expected to sacrifice freedom and stability. It's not unreasonable for people who are asked to give more, to expect more.

Small point, you’re not sacrificing freedom and stability, you’re being fairly compensated for it.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Small point, you’re not sacrificing freedom and stability, you’re being fairly compensated for it.

It's a trade. Fair is an opinion on that trade. Compensated is the fact.

I'm personally happy with my compensation, but I think it's time to move on soon. Had a couple PS offers, just waiting for the right one. Be it with the PS or industry. It's nice to be in this position.

 

[ytz]

Canadian youth a ‘rounding error’ compared to Carney government’s $88.8 billion projected OAS spending for seniors

While Prime Minister Mark Carney’s spring fiscal update directed nearly $2 billion toward housing affordability, it left untouched roughly $17.5 billion in annual Old Age Security (OAS) payments flowing to retirees with six-figure household incomes.

OAS is by far the largest and fastest-growing line item in the federal budget, projected to cost $88.8 billion for the 2026-27 fiscal year, at a time when young Canadians face a cost-of-living crisis, delayed independence, and rising underemployment.

“The money they’re putting into housing affordability, child care, post-secondary education, or youth employment is really kind of a rounding error,” says Paul Kershaw, founder and director of Generation Squeeze, a non-partisan organization advocating for clawing back OAS payments.

New Statistics Canada data shows that millennials aged 25 to 39 are twice as likely to live with their parents as Baby Boomers were at the same age, 16.3 percent in 2021 versus 8.2 percent in 1991, with rates soaring to 26.1 percent in Toronto and 19.3 percent in Vancouver. This surge in multigenerational living reflects a housing affordability crisis that has left younger Canadians delaying independence, partnerships, and family formation.

Compounding the pressure, youth unemployment has climbed sharply by 57 percent in the last three years.

The World Happiness Report released earlier this year highlighted a stark intergenerational divide in Canada. Canadians over 65 ranked among the top eight countries globally for life satisfaction, while Canadians under 30 placed 58th

Meanwhile, a recent analysis published by The Hub underscores this part of the decline in young Canadians’ life satisfaction. For the first time in Canadian history, the average man aged 65 and over now earns more ($61,600) than the average man aged 25-34 ($61,200).

As the quality of life has deteriorated for young Canadians, the starting of families has likewise declined. Canada’s total fertility rate hit a record low of 1.25 children per woman in 2024, placing it in the “ultra-low” category alongside countries like Japan and South Korea. A 2023 Cardus study found Canadian women still want an average of 2.2 children, underscoring that economic barriers, not shifting values, are driving a delay in Canadians having children.

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Source: Canadian youth a ‘rounding error’ compared to Carney government’s $88.8 billion projected OAS spending for seniors